I'm looking for testers of the Debian installer for the SheevaPlug
with eSATA. The "daily images" of the installer now use the
2.6.32-5-kirkwood which has support for the SheevaPlug eSATA. This
kernel has not moved to testing yet (although it should do so soon)
but we can simply specify an additional repository to install the
newer kernel.
If you want to test the Debian installer on a SheevaPlug eSATA, please
follow these instructions and send your feedback.
1) Boot loader
You will need a boot loader that has support for eSATA. I don't have a
SheevaPlug eSATA so I'm not sure what you need exactly. The u-boot
mentioned on my web site doesn't have eSATA support. I was told that
the uboot-sata-090903.bin binary at http://www.newit.co.uk/u-boot/
does. There's also a uboot-2009-11-08.bin binary now but I'm not
sure what this offers.
It would be great if someone with a SheevaPlug eSATA could comment on
the best version of u-boot to use.
In any case, you need to have or upgrade to a version of u-boot with
eSATA support.
2) Configure your machine
You have to set the right machine ID so the kernel will know that you
have a SheevaPlug eSATA:
setenv mainlineLinux yes
setenv arcNumber 2678
saveenv
reset
3) Load the installer
You can follow the instrutions from http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/install.html
on how to load the installer. But instead of the images linked on that
site, you have to use those from
http://people.debian.org/~joeyh/d-i/armel/images/daily/kirkwood/netboot/marvell/sheevaplug/
Also, starting the installer is slightly different. You have to do it
like this:
setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 base-installer/initramfs-tools/driver-policy=most apt-setup/local0/repository="http://people.debian.org/~tbm/orion lenny main" apt-setup/local0/key=http://people.debian.org/~tbm/orion/68FD549F
bootm 0x00800000 0x01100000
(Note that the first line is _one_ long line)
This will load the installer and specify the repository with the newer
kernel.
4) Install
Perform the installation. After user creation, you'll see that it
installs the 2.6.32-5-kirkwood kernel which you need. You'll then get
a message titled "Configuring linux-base" about changing to UUIDs.
Just say yes here and continue.
5) Make the machine bootable
Configure u-boot to boot your machine. In addition to the instructions
on my page, here is how to boot from SATA:
setenv bootcmd_sata 'ide reset; ext2load ide 0:1 0x01100000 /uInitrd; ext2load ide 0:1 0x00800000 /uImage'
setenv bootcmd 'setenv bootargs $(bootargs_console); run bootcmd_sata; bootm 0x00800000 0x01100000'
6) Feedback
Please let me know if this works or if you run into any problems. If
it works, I'll update my web page accordingly.
7) Thanks
Thanks to John Holland for working on SheevaPlug eSATA support.
--
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/